


Streetlight People

by Severina



Category: Dark Harbor (1998)
Genre: Community: prompt_in_a_box, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 18:15:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5938252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The nights are turning colder and the Young Man is growing tired of waiting for David Weinberg to make his move. So he starts the ball rolling himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Streetlight People

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-Movie. Written for LJ's prompt_in_a_box Table One, for the prompt "lies". I should also mention this was inspired by the One Song prompt over at LJ's tv_universe, which got me thinking about songs in the first place.
> 
> * * *

"The creepster's back."

The boy looks up. He doesn't have to search for it – the Cadillac is idling in its usual spot, halfway between the stop sign and the shuttered shoe store. The man sits behind the wheel, his hands still firmly at ten and two, and Mark doesn't have to get closer to know that the nails will be manicured and the skin soft as velvet. A guy like that never did a hard day's work in his life.

"Think he'll get outta the car this time?" Ramon asks.

Nick lifts a shoulder. "I still think he's a cop."

Mark tunes out the chatter this ludicrous statement brings, focuses on the streetlight picking up the glint of grey in the man's hair. It reminds him of Marvin, of long summer days lounging at the beach house and long summer nights on his knees on the deck. Marvin smelled like patchouli and fancied himself a hippie despite the BMW in the driveway and the campaigning for Dole, but Mark has learned that he can put up with a lot of delusional bullshit in return for three squares and a roof that doesn't leak. Now the nights have turned chill and Marvin is back in Seattle. And he's fucking tired of waiting around for David Weinberg to make his move.

He pushes away from the dirty brick wall. Behind him the babbling slows, then stops altogether. He's breaking the unwritten but fiercely enforced rule – never approach a vehicle on the opposite side of the road; if they really want you, they will cruise close enough to see the merchandise – and it would put him at risk of a beat-down from the client at best or arrest at worst if Nick and the others didn't know what he knows. He ignores Ramon's attempt to call him back and strolls easily across the cracked pavement; reaches the car and signals the man to roll down the window.

He notes the tension in the man's body before he slips the cool mask back in place and reaches for the button. The window slides down seamlessly, letting out a blast of warmth into the cool October night. He leans toward the window, and if David fears that he's going to pull a knife and avail himself of his wallet and maybe his fancy car he doesn't give any sign of it. Maybe this won't be so bad.

"Gonna help you out here," Mark says without preamble.

"You are, are you?"

The voice is cultured, New England by way of London. Mark already knows that from the time he placed the call to the law office and finagled his way all the way to the Weinberg desk before the man hung up on him. Somebody in accounting probably saw shit for that. In person, though, it's more reedy than it sounded over the phone; more desperately searching for control. He looks forward to breaking it, to hearing it crack on the sound of his name.

Mark inclines his head back toward the boys gathered under the flickering street light. "Samson, dude with the purple hair? Major crackhead. He'll do you cheap but it'll be messy. Now Nick, he's paranoid about cops. Thinks you're a cop, actually, so I'd avoid him on principle. Ramon there, the tight tank? He's a good guy. Probably your best bet if you want your money's worth."

"And you?"

Mark stands up straighter, tucks his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "I'm not for rent."

The man flicks his gaze back to the boys slouched beneath the streetlamp. They look pathetic, Mark thinks, huddled together in their thin shirts, hips cocked and eyes shadowed. They look like what they are, two bit whores angling for just enough money so they can sink the needle in. He's not like them.

David turns his attention back to him, one eyebrow raised. "And you think," he says slowly, " _that_ is what I want."

Mark knows he must tread carefully here. He shrugs, the movement making the too-large denim jacket he'd filched from Marvin's closet just before the end slither off his right shoulder. He watches the man's eyes dip unconsciously there – to the frayed edge of white cotton and the slip of skin – before he shrugs it casually back into place. "I know all about guys like you."

The man lifts his eyes, regards him coolly. "Get in."

"Already told you, I'm not for rent."

The corners of David's lips turn up just slightly. "Just to talk, then." And then, when Mark still hesitates, "It's cold."

He makes himself wait a beat, then another, before lifting a shoulder and walking around to the passenger door. The interior is warm, the leather seats smooth and supple, and David Weinberg smells not like patchouli but like spiced cologne with an undercurrent of whiskey. He'd had to fortify himself for these bi-weekly adventures. Not a surprise. But then, he is rarely surprised at anything.

Mark leans easily back into the seat, roots around in his pocket for the battered pack of Winstons. He draws out a thin cancer stick and holds out a hand when the man's eyes flash. "No worries, I'm not lighting up," he says before David can speak. "Guys like you never want people smoking in their cars."

"Is that so?" the man says. "Tell me all about the 'guys like me'. I anxiously await your words of wisdom."

"Sure," Mark says. "First off, you're married."

The man's gaze flicks to the ring on his left hand. "Hardly a surprising deduction."

"And you hate being married."

"On the contrary, I quite enjoy being married. I have a large home filled with exquisite furnishings, live-in staff and a fully stocked wine cellar. A vacation home on a private island. Marriage has been good to me."

Mark flicks the cigarette end over end through his fingers, watches it flick between light and shadow. "But," he prompts.

"I enjoy what being married has given me," the man says finally. "It's the _wife_ I can't stand."

The boy turns his head, allows himself a small grin. "Bitch?"

"You don't know the half of it."

He does, actually. Alexis Chandler-Weinberg fills the society pages, and it's easy enough for someone like him to read between the lines. He twirls the smoke again expertly between his fingers before tucking it behind his ear and twisting in his seat. "It's not just your wife. It's all women," he says. "You like men."

He thinks he may have gone too far too quickly when David stiffens; braces himself for the knee-jerk denial and to have his ass kicked to the curb. It'd mean a month of wasted research with no back up plan and winter licking at his heels… but then the man relaxes, the hands that had flexed into fists curling open on the pricey topcoat.

"You don't want to hurt her," he continues, pressing forward just a little. "But you can't help how you feel. And you're just looking. Just… wanting."

There is no sound but the hiss of the warm air from the vents. The boy doesn't look away when David's eyes slip briefly closed. He can _feel_ the man's hunger, the yearning for a touch that fills the car more than the high-end cologne or the perfume of new leather. He can almost roll around in it.

"You wish it could be more," he says softly, "but Tuesdays and Thursdays are the only nights you can get away. Those are the evenings your wife does charity work." The boy cocks his head, considers how much to reveal. "I'm guessing some women's rights bullshit and then something with the homeless."

"She doles out soup at the shelter on 14th twice a week," the man bites out. His lip curls. "She's very fond of informing me of how much good she's done, as she curls on the divan with a glass of two hundred dollar chardonnay after she's spent half an hour in the shower wiping the stench of poverty from her skin."

The man isn't looking at him – he's staring sightlessly out the windshield – so the boy smiles, leans back against the headrest. There is much more that he could tell the man. That the caddy with its plush bucket seats is leased from a dealership on Long Island, and in his wife's name. That his corner office, with its less than stellar view of the parking garage, is not as cushy as he believes. That there is a broken floorboard in his house under the third step from the top of the stairs that creaks when you step on it, and an open bottle of expensive whiskey stashed beneath the flimsy satin in his wife's underwear drawer.

"She's not what you want," he says. "But you feel stuck. Trapped."

He sees again the Weinberg house on the hill, with its white columns and rolling green lawn. The floral sofa in the sitting room and the vases of fresh daisies on the dining table and the sunlight spilling from the patio doors. There is nothing in the home that speaks of the man sitting behind the wheel of the ostentatious caddy. Nothing that wasn't paid for with the money his wife brought to the marriage. He listens to David breathing heavily and hopes that he is thinking of it, too.

"How much for a blow job?" the man asks into the silence.

Mark makes himself stiffen. Then he pushes himself up from the seat and reaches for the door handle. The metal is warm under his fingers.

"Wait," David says.

He slides the handle down and lets in the cool autumn air. 

"Wait," David says again. Mark doesn't move, not even when the man's fingers curl around his bicep. He sits, half in and half out of the vehicle; feels the tension thrumming through the palm of David's hand.

"Please," David says. 

The boys are still watching from across the street, huddled beneath the pool of light, but they are too far away to see the look of triumph on his face at the whisper of desperation in the man's voice. He presses his lips together before he turns in his seat. The harsh overhead light highlights every wrinkle; makes the dull grey in David's hair shine like silver. 

"I'm sorry," David says.

Mark nods once, shortly, before he releases the handle and lets the door slide shut again. The caddy is once again a cocoon, the only sound the muted rumble from the heat vents and, faintly, their own breathing. He lets the moment draw out, and out, and with every moment that passes he sees himself getting closer to some lush apartment in the city and further from the roach motel where he currently hangs his hat. 

"I assumed," the man says finally, his face wan and embarrassed, "that you were playing hard to get."

"I told you—"

"I know," he interrupts quickly, "and I do apologize. I should never have… let me take you for coffee? To make amends."

Mark stares out the windshield for a five-count before he turns, plasters on a tentative smile of his own. "You didn't mean anything by it," he says. "Coffee'd be nice."

The man's relief is palpable, scenting the air as fully as his desperation. As his longing. As his lust. 

"Good," the man says. "My name is David, by the way."

Mark shakes his long hair out of his eyes as he reaches for his seat belt. It takes a lot of finesse, but he manages to press the entire length of his body alongside David's as he does so. For a moment the other man freezes, and then the gasping shudder of his breath pushes against his skin.

"Nice to meet you, David," Mark says. "I'm James."

He doesn't look at the boys on the corner as the Cadillac pulls away, Nick with his conspiracy theories about every damn john and Marco with his tattoos and Ramon, who tried to look out for him in his way. 

He won't be back.


End file.
